


Mon Mystère

by Bandtrees



Category: Notre-Dame de Paris - Cocciante/Plamondon, Notre-Dame de Paris | The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - All Media Types, Notre-Dame de Paris | The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Dark Crack, F/M, Gringoire POV, Infidelity, Manipulation, Non-Canonical Character Death, Obsession, One Shot, Stalking, YANDERE. PIERRE. GRINGOIRE, about to describe this in three words and drive away any and all readers:, that's a tag? - Freeform, this is a crackfic level idea wrapped in purple prose i hope you enjoy, victor hugo is spinning in his grave, villain AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:48:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24326782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bandtrees/pseuds/Bandtrees
Summary: If a brave man was what Esmeralda wanted, then a brave man was what she would get.—Canon divergent AU where Gringoire's love for Esmeralda is just as wicked as Frollo's.
Relationships: Esméralda | Esmeralda/Pierre Gringoire, Phoebus de Châteaupers/Esméralda | Esmeralda
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Mon Mystère

**Author's Note:**

> ...okay, I swear there's an explanation for this. The idea for this first came to me when I was joking with a friend about Pierre and he said "Hellfire but it's Pierre about Djali", and that stuck with me, and then it morphed into "AU where Pierre is the love-driven villain instead of Frollo". I think I can call this a crackfic, because it's definitely not reflective of how I actually view any of these characters, but I still put a lot of twisted love into this XD
> 
> For starters, I'll say that my knowledge of the book is... pretty minimal. I read relevant scenes for this fic, but my HoND passion mostly comes from the musical and Disney movie. Hopefully any inconsistencies aren't distracting! This fic possessed me, I think. I wrote this whole nightmare in two days. 
> 
> Finally, the Underage warning just comes from a canon scene involving Esmeralda and Phoebus. I try to steer clear of NSFW themes in general, much less... those kinds, but with the source material and the premise of this fic it was hard to avoid.
> 
> Without further ado, here's Mon Mystère! Lovingly titled in the writing process as Hellfire But With Pierre.

As La Esmeralda sang from beneath her breath, Pierre Gringoire was certain he felt love. An angel had appeared in the Court of Miracles just then, brought down to Earth to give him one more chance, and oh, was he glad he had taken it. Amidst the filth he was beginning to accept he would spend his last breath in, moments away from begging for Clopin to just break his neck and spare him the humiliation, Esmeralda parted the crowd with ease and a light step, agreeing to take him.

She was a girl of few words, with a small pout on her face more often than not. Gringoire could never quite tell what she was thinking, living in her own little world that seemed to consist of only her and the pretty Djali. She always appeared deep in thought, her brow creased as if troubled by something she kept firmly under lock and key. Not that he minded — he too was imaginative, he had to be! — but he yearned to know what went through that mental world of hers.

Simply looking at the dancer’s features, he was overwhelmed with fancy and inspiration unlike any he had indulged in all of his years as a writer, and that meant something. Writing was his solace from the moment he picked up a quill to learn how, a poem written for every scar he endured, a craft that cared not for his rank in Parisian society as a mere penniless failure. He was an author who found creativity and revelation everywhere he went, but none as great as the Romani girl and her goat companion.

A girl with a tarnished bronze exterior and a gold interior — yes, that was Esmeralda. Pierre was in no place to judge her appearance, as Dom Claude Frollo’s younger brother once compared him to a drowned rat, but even he could note the calluses on her feet from dancing, the riot of untamed curls spilling down her back, the worn edges to her sleeves and collar. The jewelry dangling from her wrists was likely stolen, or perhaps a luxury she had dedicated months to gathering funds for. Regardless, every inch of her body, every piece of her clothing, told a story, and as Gringoire observed her, he yearned to hear them for himself.

That would prove a difficulty, but not impossible. He forgave Esmeralda’s nervous demeanor, even when it stung him, as no amount of love at first sight could have made them more than strangers.

_“I can never love a man who cannot protect me.”_

They were words he could recite in a perfect mirror of the lovely girl’s voice, and though he only heard them once, they burned into his mind perhaps even more than her other attributes — but only perhaps.

He was disheartened to hear her reject him so curtly, but he found he was unwilling to believe her. She would not have freed him from his certain death if there was no spark of desire, much less marry him. Marriage was a heavenly bond, even one enacted in the filthiest of slums by a seasoned beggar rather than a minister, and Gringoire’s soul of a philosopher believed that far more staunchly than he did his wife’s words. If marriage was not sacred, then what did he have? He was the boy of a long-dead couple, murdered before his virginal eyes at only six years of age. The love of that long-dead couple was the only thought that spurred him on when he was so tempted to lay down in the snow and waste away, and there were moments he was certain he could feel their arms around him as he shivered against the pavement some nights.

Love was true. Every letter he penned as a writer was based around love — love for humanity, their creations, the roofs they dwelled beneath, their stories — and the Lord simply could not allow him to experience false love after all he sacrificed to the concept. He endured being pelted with rotten food and publicly ridiculed for his loving works; if any man in Paris deserved love, it was him.

And so, he was certain she would come around. She was his guardian angel made flesh, after all. Even when her eye wandered towards those braver and stronger than him, Gringoire studied the makeshift ring along his finger Clopin had gifted him without fear. Her eye could wander all it pleased, but it would return for him. He listened to Esmeralda’s quiet voice, the voice that freed him from a broken neck, from being tossed into a sewer for dead by the group of vagabonds, and smiled lightly to himself as he wrote a poem centered around that lovely voice.

What a life the Romani girl had lived! She spoke so flippantly of her travels, from Spain to Greece and countless more as she was brought from Hungary to France. He could listen to her recount those stories forever, learning her backstory perhaps even more thoroughly than his own. He was more grateful than a beggar receiving an alm to have received such a major part in the life of this beautiful young woman. She would have countless recollections of her travels, but she would have only one husband. He was the only man alive who could call himself the husband of Paris’ darling. It felt as if all of the suffering he had endured in his life was made worth it. He could drown in a freezing river tomorrow, have his body scavenged by carnivorous fish, and still die with a smile knowing that.

He could fill ten books and a forty-act play on that voice of hers alone, and more for each and every one of her features. He wasn’t sure she understood the depths of his gratitude, but she would, as he stopped writing momentarily to simply stare at her and Djali as she combed her fingers through the little goat’s fur — the love they shared. The love Gringoire would soon be a part of.

As time passed, however, Gringoire’s conviction weakened. He loved Esmeralda, he knew, by the inspiration she brought him, her visage as holy as her who was Notre Dame, the quirks to her behavior that he learned so intensely. He knew every detail of her clothing, her schedule, her words. The little chip on the inside of her golden bracelet only visible from certain angles, how she had a tendency to flip her hair, the charm she wore on her middle right toe, how her left little finger arched when she lifted things, the way she walked on the balls of her feet when she was too sore to put weight on the heels, the meticulous manner in which she interwove ribbons into her hair on the occasions she braided it, how her head tilted to the side when she was speaking rather passionately, the signs and sounds she trained Djali to answer to — Gringoire reckoned he knew more about her than her own guardian Clopin.

What he did not know, amidst all of this, was where lay the intentions of the woman herself.

He would learn, however. He hated to be forceful with one so delicate and pure, but there grew a point where his need to know clouded his judgment. Her eyes were wide, as if she’d been caught committing murder, when he asked her one night what significance the Latin word for sun bore to her. She murmured it often, when she believed she was alone, but there was no place for loneliness after her marriage. Wherever she went, Gringoire followed close behind, pen and parchment to his heart as if he had been stung by Cupido. He couldn’t help this — the girl occupied his every waking thought.

And as he found, it was not him, but Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers, who occupied hers.

A flame burned deep within Gringoire’s stomach, not of desire or inspiration, for once, but rage. His love for Esmeralda turned from pure to wicked in the twinkle of an eye. It wasn’t her fault, oh no, she came from nothing, of course she would be smitten with a so-called sun god. He offered her things Gringoire couldn’t, but what she did not understand was that her hopes were that of a fictional story at best — one of Gringoire’s worse plays. Phoebus de Châteaupers was hollow beneath that armor, living with a silver spoon, azure blood, and nothing else. He could never hope to connect with her like Gringoire could.

Still, he sat beside her as he taught her and Djali to spell using those lettered boxwood blocks, with a level voice and silver tongue despite the thorny envy in his heart as she carefully drew several blocks from their line to arrange them and spell the name of that gallant knight clad in gold, the one who touted bravery Esmeralda was growing more convinced her husband lacked.

She was not wrong to think that — after all, he recounted before the story of how he was expelled from the army for his squeamish behavior — but that made it ache no less. He was brave in his own ways, he knew, but no adventurous playwright could even begin to compare to an adventurous soldier.

When he finally caught the eye of the man in question, it was burned into Gringoire’s head, though Phoebus likely paid the lanky, bony, poverty-stricken writer as much mind as a chicken paid a church. A well-dressed, pale-haired woman with a ring on her finger hung off of the soldier’s arm, watching Esmeralda dance, blissfully unaware how her husband was violating the sanctity of not one but two marriages in the same action.

Ever since he’d met the soldier, all Gringoire saw when he closed his eyes was the visage of him mangled in war. Gringoire knew the state of those battlefields all too well from his short time serving, and seeing the gore and viscera of Phoebus de Châteaupers spread across the dirt was far easier for him to imagine than that of his real friends and fellow soldiers.

The Captain’s sun-colored, neat long hair drenched in black, hardened blood, his skull shattered against a stone in a trench, eyes empty and fixed upon the sky, hands gray with death, never to be near the sweet untouched Esmeralda again. The tongue he spoke to and desired to kiss her with lolling out of his jaw, being picked at out of his mouth by scavengers and birds. The pieces of his armor falling from their seams as their owner’s body rotted into little more than a skeleton, his fellow soldiers locating his body only after nature had ravaged it beyond any semblance of recognition. A nail being driven into an unmarked coffin. It brought the poet great comfort, though some would have gone green at the very notion. He had no right to tempt a married woman — it was a real marriage, a true marriage, it _had_ to be — especially not when he was married himself. Phoebus deserved that brutalizing fate far more than any of the army men Gringoire knew.

There was a notable dark turn to Gringoire’s newer poetry pieces, marked by his descent into such envy. One, _Repos et Loisirs_ , was met not with laughter and vandalism from the crowd, but stunned silence at its violent descriptions — nonetheless, he was proud of it. It was yet another instance of how Esmeralda inspired him, and he hoped to all that was holy she understood how much she meant to him. When not clutching a quill, or some household object or other for street performances, Gringoire’s hand was firmly on his wedding ring.

It was no real ring, simply woven together with what he presumed to be dark scraps of cloth, the first things the Duke of Egypt could grab to commemorate the occasion, but it brought Gringoire happiness all the same. He and La Esmeralda needed nothing extravagant, and sometimes things that were extravagant were worse — his point of reference being the farce of a union that was Phoebus and Fleur-de-Lys — no diamond or gold rings in the world could compare to the worn ones wrapped around his and Esmeralda’s fingers now. Never in one million years.

She slept soundly now, arms curled around Djali as the pretty little goat slept too, content. A serene smile was spread on her face — a rare sight, compared to her usual thoughtful frown, but one Gringoire cherished even more — as her dark hair spilled across them both. Her chest rhythmically rose and fell. The bedroom was silent save for Gringoire’s breathing as he twisted the ring on his finger with the same hand’s thumb.

There was a curl falling down Esmeralda’s face, just barely tickling her nose. He wished he could move closer, brush it away before it became a bother, but he didn’t want to wake her and ruin this rare peaceful quiet.

Besides, the closed door ensured their distance as he pulled away, legs slightly aching from his position pressed against the keyhole.

* * *

Gringoire’s performance outfit reminded him all too much of that of Clopin Trouillefou — with bright colors, puffy sleeves, bells at the various seams, even streamers, though they’d since been ripped out (if not by Djali then by enraged audiences). He felt like a fool in the costume, warm as it was in the unforgiving January chill. The purple face makeup that began to itch at his skin after a few hours no matter how often he wore it didn’t help, but it was as much of a performance as any. If nothing else, Parisians took kinder to his various acts of buffoonery than they did his writing, which he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of.

Even if it was a state he wished anyone he had the least bit respect for would never see him in, it brought him closer to Esmeralda and Djali. She was in alliance with the beggars who brought him in, and for once appeared genuinely excited to experience Gringoire’s performances. The humiliation seemed to vanish every time he remembered this, every time he spotted Djali trot over to dance alongside him.

It seemed, also, that people began to buy into the foolishness he was obfuscating. He remembered as clear as day an odd encounter he had with Archdeacon Claude Frollo one sunset, having been roughly interrupted in the middle of a balancing act by the priest and brought into the cathedral to explain himself.

While they hadn’t interacted since before his and Esmeralda’s union — it had only been two months, though he could barely _imagine_ a life without her — Gringoire could see something different in his teacher’s behavior. When the topic fell to Esmeralda, he seemed to bristle, eyes turning from their usual sullen, stern, half-lidded appearance to wide and frantic. At first Gringoire believed this was mere prejudice — sadly not uncommon — but when Frollo began to press him with questions, however, a clearer picture came to Gringoire of the emotion plaguing the archdeacon. He recognized it from the tavern goers — or more specifically, those not brave enough to set a foot inside as much as they longed to.

Lust.

When he watched Esmeralda from his post, it was not contempt in his eyes, but desire. Perhaps he didn’t even realize this himself, but Gringoire wasn’t as stupid as the archdeacon may have wanted him to be.

He seized Gringoire’s arm and demanded to know if the couple had laid together, if Gringoire ever touched her, if they had impure thoughts and urges — all of which was denied, but the poet could tell Frollo wasn’t asking this for his sake, but for his own. Projecting, just as Gringoire wrote poems of quiet girls unaware of their beauty and the painful deaths of wicked soldiers, pushing his own desires onto another.

Gringoire wasn’t sure how to take this — he _trusted_ Frollo, of course! He was a kind — if eccentric — man, and certainly not the type Esmeralda wanted even if her heart didn’t belong to her husband (and it did! He was certain!), but he couldn’t stop the same fear that he had when thinking about Phoebus. Perhaps it was something wrong with him, that he saw the man who was almost a father to him as a rival, but the lust in Frollo’s eyes was more than a little unnerving.

Testing him wasn’t Gringoire’s wisest idea, but he hated the idea of wrongfully maligning someone he was so close to. He had to be sure — and sure enough, his suspicions were confirmed. The conversation ended abruptly as a comment about catching Esmeralda changing clothes sent Frollo into a frenzy and he shoved Gringoire out into the night to ponder the situation further.

The crowd gathered for his and Esmeralda’s performance had long since dispersed, not to mention the cat he borrowed for it nowhere to be seen. He had no room to consider that, though, not after what he’d learned. His mind was invaded by the revolting images of Frollo’s dark hands on his wife, the sins of the man’s imagination when he watched her dance, even more so when he closed his eyes to rub away the face paint.

Esmeralda would be at home, and they would be able to talk about their days and the hobbies they grew to share over the past two months, Gringoire’s favorite part of the day, but he had no room to enjoy it between the anger towards Phoebus and, fresher, the anger towards Frollo. At the very least, he thought bitterly, he lived with Esmeralda amongst the vagabonds and not the archdeacon anymore. He didn’t think he could stand being in the same room as the man now that his shock turned to anger.

Distantly, he knew this was unlike him. His union with Esmeralda did something irreversible to him, but that was love, wasn’t it? This was his first taste of it, and he couldn’t afford to have someone try and ruin it for him. Not a high-ranking aristocratic soldier, and certainly not the archdeacon of Notre Dame.

His worry melted as he turned into his home to find the love of his life and her pet, and she allowed him to sit near her, even put his arm around her as they spoke. Esmeralda was not especially affectionate, but the moments she was, Gringoire tirelessly analyzed what he’d done to make her so. It was only three days ago, but remembering her kissing his face several times for a crowd — even as part of a routine — brought a smile like no other. He loved the attention, but didn’t mind the lack of it, either. He couldn’t be pushy with his darling, and besides, as he thought of Phoebus’ and Frollo’s carnal desires, he reckoned that a less physical relationship was perhaps even purer.

All he needed was to be beside her, feeling her breathing against him. Maybe she didn’t see him as a lover, not yet, but perhaps if she knew his thoughts, she would. She would learn what she needed wasn’t always what she wanted, and be happy with it. Be happy with _him._ He was so content by her side as she spoke that he found himself leaning against her, and was met with no resistance as he drifted to sleep, holding her close.

Their marriage was atypical — not once had they kissed on the mouth, only chaste ones to the cheek and brow from Esmeralda as her standard thanks to those close to her (oh! She found him close to her! Well, he knew _that,_ of course, but it still made his heart flutter all the same…!), nor obviously had they had sex or even touched in a way that went beyond two friends — but it was true, and moments like this assured Gringoire that he was thawing his wife’s heart bit by bit. Their first night together, she darted across the room when he so much as reached to touch her, and now his head rested in the crook of her neck, embracing the girl with all the love in his heart.

Still, in the here and now, he had to be observant of the other men’s behavior. Phoebus was an obstacle, a sign of trust to be overcome, but Frollo was a danger. Gringoire knew of the latter’s instability, stemming from his tumultuous life, the low approval rating from fellow Parisians, and the misery that accompanied raising Jehan — lust despite his vow of chastity, much less towards a Romani girl, would only add to the stressors. It wasn’t out of character, terrifying as the thought was, for him to try and reach out to take what he wanted.

Gringoire knew something had to be done. The archdeacon was a disaster waiting to happen, and he could never call himself a proud husband if he were to let something awful come about Esmeralda! Truthfully, he let his fear get the better of him at a point, suddenly grabbing her by the arm one morning to try and dissuade her from performing in sight of the cathedral. He didn’t remember the excuse he came up with, but it was evidently a wrong one, as the normally placid Esmeralda snapped and told him it was a matter of money, of the audience, and that not everyone had the luxury of choice like _him._

Before he could defend himself, she’d stomped off towards the direction he recalled the Court of Miracles being, and he dared not follow since his last encounter there — the one that had wed him and Esmeralda to begin with. As her light footsteps vanished down the alleyway, the clopping of Djali’s hooves following, Gringoire’s eyes didn’t leave them as he fidgeted with his cap, and even after they disappeared, his gaze remained fixed on their afterimages.

He felt hollow. La Esmeralda had never raised her voice more than once, much less towards him. His hands twisted around his cap, trembling with the force of an emotion he couldn’t put a name to but felt to be very, very negative. He had upset his beloved! It was here he learned the thorny envy and blazing anger was just as dangerous as Frollo’s lust. Normally, he would push those feelings aside, save them for his art, but as it seemed, they were beginning to spill through the cracks.

Something had to be done. He never wanted to push Esmeralda to that anger ever again. But how, when she had the spirit of an untamed horse, wandering as she pleased and heeding his concern as an insult? His teeth ground — her so-called _sun god_ Captain of the Guard wouldn’t have restricted her like this, and as far as Gringoire knew he had just driven in the final nail in their relationship’s coffin. He couldn’t let that happen to her — she could hang him with her silk scarf, drive out his eyes with his favorite quills, burn his creations before his very eyes if it meant she was safe and away from harm. He wanted nothing more than for her to know that, but she would never see him as anything more than an inconvenience at this state.

_“I can never love a man who cannot protect me.”_

Pierre Gringoire was smart, creative, thoughtful, _loving_ , oh so _loving,_ but not brave. He wanted to protect her, truly! He would smash his fingers against the cobblestone one by one for a jeering crowd if it would protect Esmeralda!

...but in the end, all that was was hypotheticals. Imagination. _Stories._ All he ever did was write _stories_. Words meant nothing to someone as lively as Esmeralda, who spent her time dancing, running, fighting. She needed someone who would protect her, not simply nudge her towards safety with careful words and well wishes.

How, though, Gringoire was unsure. He was no knight in gold armor, no fighter — he was little more than skin and bones, and Esmeralda’s first encounter with him in the shadowy streets with that dreadful-looking hunchback, where he was too shocked to move and very well could have let him drag her off to God-knew-where in his fright, only solidified it in her mind. Pierre Gringoire was a coward, and no matter what he said, she had seen it for herself.

While he was unaware of it at the time, that was his only chance to win over the girl who would become the love of his life.

Where would he ever be able to prove himself again? His thumb tore through an uneven seam in a sewn patch on his cap. He ruminated on this for a long while, before a thought he would have dismissed in a better state of mind appeared.

He would prove to her just how wicked her suitors were, and from there, save her from their claws — just as the gallant de Châteaupers had saved her from the hunchback. He was no soldier, but he knew the human mind inside and out from the studies taken for his writing. Spur Frollo into action, grave action, only to expose him and save Esmeralda at the perfect moment! If he played his cards right, he could even do something to Phoebus — though at this point he wasn’t sure what. The floodgates had opened in Gringoire’s mind to all of the violent opportunities, and something in him truly snapped in that moment.

From that point on, to Gringoire, Phoebus de Châteaupers and Dom Claude Frollo were not human beings with histories, but fictional set pieces he could speak into action however he saw fit. He could bend their stories around him and Esmeralda, save her from the devils, then give them both the happy ending Gringoire had suffered so tirelessly for.

And he would suffer more, no doubt, as his plan would cause him to render a man who had cared for him so lovingly rejected by society at best and hanged at worst, but that paled in comparison to the happiness he and Esmeralda would finally share. It would all be worth it — a man as saintly as Claude Frollo would be _glad_ to die for the happiness of someone he cared about, right?

Gringoire put his cap back over his head, adjusted it once, and counted the paving-stones in the direction of the Notre Dame cathedral as he walked.

* * *

As he heard more and more of Frollo’s depravity, Gringoire’s grief over what he was going to do began to lessen. Perhaps the archdeacon was always this wicked, Gringoire thought, only masterfully hiding its rumination beneath the surface before La Esmeralda awoke it. Regardless, he grew to believe that having the man hanged was long overdue, from how he looked at Esmeralda, spoke of her, Gringoire’s _wife—_

It was a necessary evil, but it made it no less painful for Gringoire to hear these thoughts, much less spur them on. It was sickening to say these things about Esmeralda, his own darling, his own angel, even if they were subtle enough lies — he said them not for himself, but to drive Frollo further into his lustful frenzy, corrupting the saintly archdeacon’s mind to the point where his twisted envy and desire were the only things that drove him.

That was the plan, of course. Push him further to the edge, with hints throughout their conversations, particularly lustful religious passages when they studied, even bringing him to the girl herself when she danced in the square. Bring him closer and closer, close enough to touch, only to reel him back with the coy reminder that he was a holy man and she was a married woman, that he would be truly sinful and wicked to ever _truly_ think that way — why, Gringoire only confided in him these things because he knew how good and saintly his dear teacher was, and that he would never be tempted by these simple stories! — driving him further mad, and thus the serpent consumed its own tail.

Finally, when the time was right, over one study session as they recalled the story of Abraham’s great sin, Gringoire dropped in the name of Phoebus de Châteaupers — the man who had tempted Esmeralda into adultery, one of the most maligned sins in the Bible. But like all sins, it could be forgiven, and Gringoire had every intention of forgiving his wife. How could he blame someone so innocent, who barely knew the differences between men and women, for being swept off her feet by a well-built aristocrat with the name of a god? He would be swept off his feet too if he were a damsel that naïve — the fault lied not with her, but the man who thought to take advantage of that purity.

Gringoire smiled, pleased with himself, when he overheard Jehan Frollo wandering the cathedral, complaining to his classmates about how he was beginning to fear his brother’s sudden interest in dark magic and denouncement of God — and most notably, a curse upon the name of his close friend Phoebus de Châteaupers.

Mingled with his notes for his writing were Gringoire’s close observations of the behaviors of all involved, describing Phoebus’ schedule and home life as if he were another character in a play Gringoire had to get right — in a sense, he was. They all were — Frollo, the villain Gringoire would free Esmeralda from the clutches of, Phoebus, the false romantic lead dying at a climactic moment, Esmeralda herself the hero’s prize, his happy ending. And they would live happily ever after, Gringoire was certain, as the world as he knew it was divided into four categories — his darling, himself, the side characters, and the obstacles.

Still, determined as he was to think this was all a fated plotline with a set happy ending, it still tore at Gringoire to see Esmeralda and her false romantic lead interact. How attentive she was to his stories, with her laughter like bells and the happy reddening of her cheeks when they spoke, in stark contrast to the permanent little grimace on her face and curt sentences when she spoke with anybody else. Gringoire never hated those features, mind you, but he did hate the pain of seeing someone he loved so dearly miserable around him and cheerful with another.

 _Not for long,_ he reassured himself, as he followed several feet behind the now-cloaked archdeacon wandering the streets at night, turning into an inn spilling golden light onto the cobblestone after the Captain in question. Hardened by his experiences living on the streets, Gringoire was lithe and artful, able to shift past them into the shadows for a different entrance. His own body was cloaked, appearance hidden — if he was caught, then he could easily be mistaken for the other intruder — the night made him and Frollo look nearly identical.

Slipping through the inn via a window, knowing not to make a sound with his bare, bandaged feet and small, bony form, Gringoire crept up a staircase and into a room he presumed to be empty, before vanishing into a closet pried open just enough to see what was happening. Nobody was here yet, but there were voices coming from below, the clack of something being bolted shut, until finally, following what felt like a century, a trap door opened and out emerged an old woman holding a lantern — presumably the inn’s owner.

After her, the face that had been the subject of each and every one of Gringoire’s violent fantasies. Captain Phoebus, who the poet had imagined mangled and suffering in near every way possible. His blood boiled to see the soldier’s smug smile as he fingered his mustache, and upon a glimpse of that toothy grin, an image entered his head of the skin on the man’s lips torn away and bloody. His hands balled tightly — he had to control himself. As much as he wanted to, he wouldn’t be the one to slaughter the Captain tonight.

Following him, the appearance of his lovely Esmeralda sated Gringoire’s anger. This was what he was suffering for — the chance to love her and be loved all the same by her, long past the four years Clopin promised. He let out a trembling, loving sigh, though the love didn’t last as the old woman left, leaving Phoebus to tempt Esmeralda all he pleased.

He didn’t even know her _name._ Gringoire knew her every detail and quirk, and yet the man she was going to instead didn’t even know her name. His hand was wrapped tightly around the rapier at his hip as he fumed, forced to listen to Phoebus’ empty promises of love as Esmeralda poured her heart out for him, frequently interrupted by his touching her, enraging Gringoire at the audacity he had to be so shameless about his shallow, superficial attraction — if it could even be _called_ that.

For a moment, he could close his eyes and pretend she was speaking to him instead. _“When I am with you, Pierre!”_ But it didn’t last, jostled out of his dreams by the revolting words out of Phoebus’ mouth, about marriage and that false, _false_ love of his. Gringoire quickly glanced aside upon seeing the half-naked Esmeralda, though he had more of a right to the sight than any other man in the room. The love in her voice was heartbreaking — both on his behalf, as she had never spoken to him in that tone before, and on hers, so innocently believing the deception Phoebus was feeding her.

Gringoire shielded his eyes as they kissed, biting his lip so roughly that he began to taste a bead of blood, but he couldn’t block out the sounds, twitching and trembling until a foreign noise gave him cause for alarm and he allowed one eye to open, watching his meticulous story, his best play yet, unfold before his very eyes.

_(Enter FROLLO; stage right.)_

The door to a nook opposite the room opened, out stumbling the so-called goblin monk Claude Frollo himself — with a shadowy, gloved hand grasping a poniard, and a face barely recognizable as human, it was twisted with such malice. He loomed over the couple, Esmeralda catching his gaze though no words came out.

Gringoire’s hand lowered to reach for his own blade, eyes shining with a manic glee as a pained screech rang out through the small room. The dagger descended upon Phoebus’ back once, and then twice, as his eyes shot open with shock, Gringoire thinking with bitter amusement that the aristocrat’s blood was in fact not blue as it splattered the blade and dripped down the hapless Captain’s spine. Esmeralda stumbled and fainted at the sight of the violence, and as Phoebus finally fell for good — oh, Gringoire was certain he would replay it in his mind for years to come, the frightened look on the wicked soldier’s face one he would truly cherish! — the stabbing continued. Frollo mangled the soldier’s body as if trying to erase every trace of him, heedless of the blood drenching his gloves and cassock, as if he were nothing more than a tiger ripping apart a gazelle.

Gringoire stepped into the light as he drew his own dagger, the smell of the slaughter hitting him instantly. Blood covered the floor, smeared and smudged by the mad archdeacon’s boots, which were pressed firmly against the back of the corpse’s head as if intending to crush it beneath his heel before moving on to the unconscious girl before him.

This was his moment. As the villain kicked his victim’s body aside, the dagger raised high above his head to end the poor damsel’s life, in a swift motion Gringoire approached him from behind, clamped a hand over his mouth, and drew his weapon across the other’s throat with trembling hands. A strangled and desperate, though muffled, cry escaped Frollo, turning into a gurgle as life fled his wild eyes. The wound was deep, Gringoire certain he’d plunged the knife into the archdeacon’s throat to the hilt, possibly even striking bone, but he had to be certain the monster wouldn’t rise again. Blood spurted from the jagged slice, covering Frollo’s cloak, Gringoire’s hand, and the poor Esmeralda’s face as he, too, fell limply to the floor — likely unaware of what even hit him.

The gore was hot on Gringoire’s skin, dampening the soles of his feet as the stench of death in the room doubled. His heartbeat was roaring in his ears, surrounded by slaughter — two brutalized corpses with wide, glassy, terrified eyes. Phoebus’ jaw was slack with shock, while Frollo’s expression deeply chilled Gringoire. He could have written twenty pages on it alone — was _Le Visage D’un Homme Mort_ too direct of a title? — with its wide open, glaring, sunken-in eyes, eyebrows pulled down together, mouth open and teeth bared in a silent scream, the madness in that expression alone making Gringoire fear the corpse would rise at any second.

Blood still flowed from the injuries of the dead men, an unremarkable inn’s room overturned into a place of massacre within mere moments. Amidst it all was La Esmeralda herself, lying on her back with a pained expression — though her fainting had spared her the worst sight, simply seeing the ghoulish Frollo attack her partner had been too much for the poor girl. Phoebus had almost completely stripped her, her bare virginal flesh covered in the dark stains of the violence around her. She had no place in a scene of such cruelty, and while Gringoire thought that with a pang of sadness, he knew it was the only way they would have their happily ever after.

She would thank him, he was sure.

The image was almost like a painting, and part of Gringoire didn’t wish to disturb it as he stepped over the bodies to touch her. “My angel, La Esmeralda…” he breathed, voice barely a whisper as he knelt beside her. Tears welled in his eyes — oh, how _long_ he had prepared for this moment, and here it finally was. “I saved you, my love. Are you not proud?” He traced a thumb across her cheek, that soft skin, the touch sending a jolt of excitement through him as he began to tremble — whether with exertion or relief, he did not quite know.

“Might you have me now?” He asked, though he knew she would not answer. “Have I not proven I can be the brave man you desire so?”

The red stains were stark against his pale skin, and only smeared upon Esmeralda’s temple and shoulders more as he drew her into an embrace. Carefully, with all the love in the world, he removed his cloak to drape around her, as she must have been terribly cold like that. His hands wrapped around her, burying his face in her dark hair, humming against her as she began to stir.

Slowly, her dark eyes opened, and she suddenly seized as she observed her surroundings. She was laying in a pool of blood, though not hers, and her eyes darted from the bodies to the figure holding her. Trembling, all she could manage were pained whimpers as she squirmed to pull away, but Gringoire could not let her go now. He was her hero, after all, and the world was too full of evil people like Phoebus and Frollo for a heart as pure as hers.

“No,” she moaned, squeezing her eyes shut even as the sight before her burned into her mind. Gringoire held her closer, hushing her as he pressed soft kisses to her hair. “No, no, no…” she whispered, thoroughly broken as she began to sob, clutching Gringoire close despite how much she must have feared him at that moment.

She shuddered in his arms, burying her head into his chest in an effort to look away, but there was no escaping the smell of gore and viscera permeating the room. Gringoire tenderly stroked her hair, whispering words of comfort to her, and visible beneath the dark strands and bloodstains was his worn wedding ring.

“I love you more than you will ever know, Esmeralda.” He murmured, closing his eyes with a happy sigh to feel her against him. For a moment, the whole world disappeared, the smell of Esmeralda’s hair drowning out that of the death around them, and all that existed was the poet and the dancer locked in their embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact! My original ending idea for this was where Jehan finds out what Gringoire did to his best friend and his brother and takes revenge, buuut I didn't think I could write it confidently. Jehan's my favorite boy, I love him dearly. 
> 
> I also love Gringoire, despite what this fic may have you believe XD Writing it was tough, and while I'll be the first to admit it's obviously OOC, I still tried to make Gringoire feel like, well, Gringoire. A lot of the changes to his personality and behavior came from the base concept of "an AU where he's obsessed with Esmeralda and therefore more attentive", but it's also obviously a pretty far cry from how he actually acts. I'm sorry, Pierre Gringoire enthusiasts... myself included. I promise I don't actually think he's a murderous stalker.
> 
> Anyway, hopefully you enjoyed! Comments are appreciated, and thank you for reading! With this, I've now made a HoND fic for the Disney movie, musical, and book each :'D


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